Sakuran

The show was nothing short of a visual spectacle. The settings were all in extremely vibrant colours, though not gaudily so. The kimonos that the cast wore were simply sublime. Anna Tsuchiya was cast very well as the impish, spitfire and stubborn Kiyoha. With the movie revolving around her, it was important that she could carry it through, which she did.

Of notable mention too was the soundtrack done by Shiina Ringo. I think she deserves a blog entry by herself. Since the film was never going to be conservative and true to the period, it was only fitting to have the often lively and stylish Shiina do the tunes. It included copious strings, rock instruments and some electro into a delectable mix.

A feast for the senses.

Night at Aaron's

It's been a super long while since we've hung out like that, Aaron, Kiat and I. Last time was somewhere in December. When I think of Aaron's place I think of unlimited booze because for my small tolerance for alcohol, everything becomes unlimited. Well, if you thought I was exaggerating, here's a picture to prove it.

I just had to take this picture because of the book there right beside his collection (we didn't place it there by accident!). Anyhow, Kiat and I could hardly make a dent to his collection because just a little bit of Aaron's professional concoction sent us to the end of the color spectrum already. Wadda hell, I think I'm even smiling , or trying to (THIS SHOULDN'T EVEN HAPPEN)

Tried abit of Chivas too which I was thinking of getting earlier this week. Sure glad I didn't manage to. I guess most of the time it's older people who drink it because their tastebuds must be dead to be able to swallow such a vile substance.

I think it's much nicer to drink like that instead of going to a bar because when we drink at home we can (1) Chat instead of yell because of the super loud music (2) Drink in moderation because people get crazy outside (3) Not end up sleeping on the sidewalk.

26/8/08

Caught this movie called Gaichu for the Japanese Film Festival at the National Museum with Kev after work. It's probably the most disturbing PG movie I've ever watched. It totally explored the meaning of dysfunctional when it came to relationships.

Never as tired as today ever. Slept past my alarm clock, slept after breakfast, couldn't stay awake in the car for about one hour. Slept during lunch break. I think my body is telling me something. The meds not helping either. And I'm definitely not helping. Gahhh

25/8/08

Today there were some NSmen on reservist and they were just chilling out. Then my super sharp eyes caught a handwound Poljot on one of them then I talked about it then suddenly we had this super watch discussion that later turned into investment discussion. Somehow, I missed my team going out by 5 minutes and they couldn't find me so I ended up not doing anything the whole morning. Time passed super fast today because half the time my eyelids were closed, like in the staff room until suddenly one thick file from the heavens dropped and hit my head which immediately woke me up :(

Millardi was on transit in Singapore to Holland. Perfect excuse to eat Popeye's chicken! Been meaning to eat it since I heard about it quite some time back but Changi might as well be in outer space as it is even more inconvenient than Pasir Ris (gotta change train somemore!). Anyhow, it didn't disappoint and I was feeling super nice and happy after the meal. Met him and his girlfriend who happens to be my uni senior! taking exactly the same course as I. Couldn't bear to watch their tearful farewell to each other so I zhaoed first.

Time stood still in our final hours as the world whizzed us by... *utter bullshit* I think my cam  just sucks.

24/8/08

Today's message at church really spoke to me. It was mainly about Christians who live double lives - at church and outside of church, and how we toe the line. Also there was this bit about being grateful to God for all that he has given us. In my life I see God's hand in all the blessings that I have received. To say the least I thinkI have led quite a charmed life, with everything seemingly go my way. Then the next part about humility, which means that I have to constantly remind myself that where I am today is undeserved and by God's grace.

After church Fuyong drove to meet me at church. Kinda pressured to get licence soon! More and more people around me getting their licence already. I'll work out the lessons after I get a proper shift plan I guess. Didn't explain the place properly and he ended up parking at the wrong place but he quite steady managed to find in the end. Just had lunch together because he's having exams tomorrow.

This is the look I get for distracting him while he's trying to chiong out of church

We're going so fast the motorcycle is whizzing past us!

Us on the road *cars honking behind*

After a week of work

Finally went to cut my precious hair which I have been carefully tending to and watching grow for 1.5 months now. After the haircut I thought what the heck, there's a polyclinic there, so I went in to settle my cough. To my disappointment, it turns out that instead of a sensitive ear (which is important for someone who plays the violin), I have a sensitive nose (which is important for absolutely nobody). Somehow, my DNA was wired for me to be a really well-behaved and unobtrusive member of society. Apparently, besides having an allergic reaction to beer (which gives me a little rash), I am allergic to cigarettes too (which is the reason for triggering my sensitive nose). How the doctor was able to diagnose a nose problem when I told him I had a cough, that really blew my mind. It's like adding 1 + 1 and getting chaos theory. I guess that's why they spend such a long time in medical school. Truth to be told, I am at my wit's end already as waking up just after midnight to cough my lungs out when I have to be up at 5.30am is not my idea of a good night's rest. Hence, it will be using poison to counter poison (it says poison on my medicine) and I will be using some ultra controlled nasal spray that contains steroids to contain the problem. Maybe it will let me run faster after criminals, I don't know.

My sickness aside, I have thought of the main problem of being a policeman. It is that a simple patrol would require us to warn/fine/arrest roughly 20% of the people we see. That is not such a good prospective considering there's only 2-3 of us, and roughly 10000000000000000 of them. Somehow, our brains are wired in such a way that actually encourages us to take risks (from research findings based on the study done by Joshua's Quack Institute). It could be little risks, like sleeping just 5 hours each night before my duty and hoping I can stay awake throughout, to bigger ones, like emptying the whole spray into my nose and hope I can pass my 2.4 after that. As economists would tell us, we do actions based on our idea of marginal costs and benefit. To cross across a street without using the traffic light presents certain costs such as being knocked down by a vehicle, being booked for jaywalking, seeing a cockroach that leaves us stunned long enough to be mowed by a trailer etc. To reduce that cost, we obviously wait until the streets look clear enough and obtain the benefit of not having to use the pedestrian crossing which would be some distance away. Others would enjoy taking bigger risks, such as robbing a school-going child near a police post, where the marginal costs outweigh the benefit quite significantly. In this case all economists worth their salt could tell you this much with quite a significant amount of calculated certainty - that person is simply a retard.

The premise being that many of us like to take risks that toe the line of legality, where exactly is the limit that requires us to step in and make life miserable for you? The line could be simply legality (you raised your hand to scratch your head just now, I think you were going to strikethe lady standing 10m away from you with enough force to render her immediate death, therefore I'm going to arrest you), or emotional (I don't like your face therefore I'm going to arrest you). This requires us to make very difficult decisions, very big shoes to fill.

My feet are rather small.

Tony Takitani

When I found out that Murakami's story has been turned into a movie, I just had to catch it. To describe it, I would probably say it's quite a minimalist kind of show, with a surreal dream-like quality, pretty much like all of Murakami's stories. Again doing the score was Ryuichi Sakamoto which went for mostly skimpy piano tunes which sounded very dark.

Before I kiss the floor

I guess being a Christian is like any other relationship, where it's like staying on a descending escalator. By being indifferent and not doing anything about it, things actually start to deteriorate. Probably the same could be said about my walk with God in the past few months. I could blame it on camp, I could blame it on anything, but the thing is that unless I do something about it, nothing's gonna change, and I'll just continue my freefall. I could look to going to church once a week, playing in Psalmist once in 3 months to lift me up, but all those are just external things, a little shot in the arm. Just today I was thinking about how things could have changed like that, without even me noticing it, but just slowly going into a sweet lull of sorts. Well, I thank God for sending people around me to shake me awake and do something about it. I think it's kinda hard, sincerely telling people there's something wrong with them. Thanks Xin Ning for being such a real FRIEND and also that awkward bit making things clear.

Today playing for worship at adults was awesome. I haven't touched my violin for ages so much so that when I opened the case yesterday there was mould on my violin.. URGHHHHhhh. Anyway, I always look forward to hanging out with the people from Psalmist, they're great fun and I don't know if this is the right thing to say, the closest I ever felt to God was when I was with them. Rather sad when the realisation hit me that I won't see alot of these guys around anymore when we disband.

Tomorrow I will once again prowl the streets of Little India looking for any wrongdoing. HAH so don't try to do anything funny or rankless Joshua (sounds cool when u put the rank in front) is going to whoop your sorry candy ass. Honestly I'm abit unnerved. In camp everything's just fun and games as long as you're prepared to do pushups for it. Now it's real situations, real people, real cases that need our attention/help. Little in camp has prepared me for this so I just gotta learn the ropes as I go along. It's gonna be fun *chants in my head* it's gonna be fun...

Silk

If Natsuo Kirino's Grotesque was the epitome for all that was revolting for me, this movie would be at th other extreme end for all the beauty it has to offer. The settings were pristinely breathtaking as they went through field desert and snow. The music was done by Ryuichi Sakamoto. It wasn't the over the top music that simply gets stuck in my head but each piece was in its own way subtly complementing the scene it was played in. If Nobuo Uematsu symbolises game music, Yuki Kajiura anime music, then I think Ryuichi would take the spot for me for movies. The dialogue, though sparse, was carefully thought out and each uttered phrase was meaningful and elegant. To say nothing of the actors would be unfair, as they all gave a believable performance. I think most of the beauty that I field exist in this show is attributable to the intensity with which it is potrayed. From the strong emotions that exist between the lead and his wife, again him toward the Japanese concubine to the ruthlessness of Jubei and the doggedness of Baldabiou. It probably did not occur to the director to do anything in halves and he went all out to make this show a masterpiece.

First day of work

Little India is quite an interesting place to be a police officer at. It's probably more likely to get knocked down by a car than be killed by a criminal. Oh well, nothing much I can do about it. So just spree anyway.

If everyday is going to be like today I'd get a heart attack soon or maybe just get numbed to it all. Maybe it would take snow in Singapore to get me remotely excited about anything again. However, I cannot share what happened today because I would contravene the Official Secrets Act which can be used against me for telling u what I ate for lunch during work today. Of course, I could always meet up with you over coffee and tell you the amazing tales, but in case you are from the Internal Security Department, I am allergic to coffee beans.

Perhaps somewhere along the way, I got stuck in a fairytale that policemen are just supposed to be nice little teddys that go around helping old grannies carry their groceries, helping blind people across the road and not sounding the horn at women drivers. Perhaps saying that I pledge to be courteous and fair and humane to everyone everyday made me really believe it. I kinda forgot that when most people see policemen, they feel abit squirmish, take a different path to avoid them (big detour because some are quite fat), and generally pray that their invisibility cloak is fully equipped in case they committed some offense without knowing it. Helping people includes not helping those that by law requires us to go out of our way to make life miserable for them. Some sentences to me are like sledgehammers for just a tiny nail. Of course they are there in place so that people would not even THINK of committing the offenses that warrant them. Being in NS for 2 years feels terrible enough for me; I cannot even imagine how jail for a longer period would be like. Somewhere along the way, the people that devised the law left out that little bit of empathy for the stupidity that is present in all of us which makes us sometimes do stupid things.

Till then, we have to take ever widening arcs to avoid those police officers.

Shaped up and shipped out

No more walking 30m to go to the toilet in the middle of the night, waking up to other peoples' alarm clocks, having to rush for toilets, drinking water 2 hours before the sun comes up, shouting when speaking will suffice, flag raising, running everywhere when I'm not wearing long pants, marching when I am, having my bath in a PSI 200 cubicle, doing push-ups in every and any attire at any time of the day, eating only halal food, hearing people sleep talk... For better of worse life in HTA has finally ended.

Reported to my division this morning for attachment and lo and behold, mr KRISHNASAMY got posted to the NPC at Little India. Wait till they find out I speak no Tamil... It's a super ulu police centre and kinda small as compared to the headquarters but most of the people there seem like nice folks although I already heard about some not so nice people there. Although that area will be a real challenge, I guess it's a place where I could be in a position to help people who genuinely need help and of course eat Indian food until I'm sick of it.

09/8/08

Today felt like 2 days or something. Was supposed to be Xin Ning's economics teacher but was like those super lousy teachers dunno anything just throw notes at students. Somewhere sometime my flu medicine started taking effect and felt almost like alcohol (free alternative courtesy of NS medical). Was on my way back when suddenly I talked about printers and she wanted to get one so we went to Sim Lim to check it out! While deciding walked about Little India and I threaded my eyebrows for the second time. Didn't hurt as much or have as much brow hair on my face like the first time. I think it was quite a good job! *wiggles eyebrows again* After that Chinese girl brought Indian boy to eat Indian food. Been a while and alot of times in camp I keep thinking about Indian food and finally today get to eat it. Yippee. After that dropped by her place to fix up the printer which I was really dumb at doing and ended up wasted alot of time and killed a couple of braincells. Guess some manufacturers don't really like Mac that much yet.

Me and my swollen eyebrows :(

The chinese looking indian waitress

Told Chun Lei in the morning that I wasn't feeling well and probably wasn't going to meet my Primary 5 class in the evening with my nose like a leaking faucet. Felt much better and went to Modestos to meet super long-lost classmates. Was only in their class for a year and 2 of them had close to nil recollection of me besides my near-impossible-to-forget surname. After a bit of catching up the guys jumped straight into talking about NS big time. I don't know why it happens and I constantly remind myself not to talk so much about NS. Weird that I was pretty good friends with Kwong Ming in P5 but somehow after changing class totally dropped contact. After he left and Wee Jia came we moved to Coffee Bean to continue. Perhaps good things come in pairs but it's quite weird that I went to Coffee Bean twice today which is more than I ever been in my life (grand total of 0!). Talk jumped from varsity to pierings *wink* to hair (which I don't have that much of :'( ), basically all over the place. Kinda broke off halfway to talk to Hsin about D2. Somehow felt a little warm reminiscing about the past which has nothing to do with our real life contact time together in school but in a virtual world where I met him in Secondary 1 or 2. For us it was probably much more than that, as real life (school mainly) took a backseat and life and D2 melded into one. It was probably wired in our DNA to get so hooked with both of us having quite a perfectionist and compulsive obsessive streak. For him he got much deeper than I did and I think it was some form of closure sharing with each other how we came to leave the game. His implicit trust in a community where such trust was required and mostly requited cost him one of the most valuable and rare possession in the game. To put into perspective, owning that particular piece of armour is probably unlikelier than winning yesterday's Toto draw and for all the other things he had, there was simply no substitute for him. He was one of the wealthiest players in the game at that point and I can attest to that even after seeing just a little bit of what he had and he's not one to exaggerate. For me it was possibly easier as I got frozen for doing what everyone was doing but unlucky enough to be selected. Looking back, it was a really good thing I got frozen which took me out of the game much earlier than Hsin and it cost him his results at O levels. We both agreed we learnt things from the game but for the portion of our life it took, it probably wasn't worth it. For quite a large part we're both quite similar, with our tendency to remember things about people that probably is small, but somehow significant enough to linger in our memories for darn long. You know you've been staying out too long when everywhere you try to hang out at starts closing. Thanks Wee Jia for the lift back! I felt much safer than when I sit in Brian's car. For that, I'll join the "Stop Bashing Lady Drivers Movement".

Really quirky to meet people like that, *lalala it's a small world after all!* when I kinda just re-met Chun Lei just 2 weeks ago at Brian's farewell party.

03/8/08

When 2 of my bestest friends and the nicest people on earth get baptised, even Joshua crawls out of his comfortable cave to attend. The last baptism I attended was roughly a decade ago - my own. They braved through storm and tribulation to get baptised, for Xin Ning it was her family potentially in her way, for Vincent it was probably trying to get a date that coincided with his birthday, which by I dunno what powerful force of nature happened. Thank God, just needed to get him ONE card then :)

Today was also a day of hope. Even a little seed planted in the midst of a forest of weeds has a chance of survival into a big tree. Or Vincent getting baptised on his birthday. Likewise, my 1 in 8,000,000 chance of striking that big draw on Friday is likewise, a hope too. My partner in crime, which I won't disclose but incidentally also got baptised today shared this hope and together, after shaking off potential spies who could discover us, braved the long queue to acquire the hope. I also will not post her disguised picture because I suspect she will retaliate on her blog and with our disparity in viewership, I have alot to lose. Therefore, I can only lead you to make conjectures.

02/8/08

Finally managed to wake up at 9 this morning!! (super accomplishment because I haven't woken up later than 6.30 at home for a super long time) Ended up with a late breakfast cum lunch which was alot of stuff just haphazardly thrown together which kinda got my stomach messed up, so when my stomach is messed up the best thing to do is to not do anything at all! So that could only mean one thing. Found a very comfortable spot on my sofa and travelled mentally to a land far far far far away...

Went to Xin Ning's house with Jed for the pizza party she organised in the afternoon. Seems a trend that every party I will be exposed to some liquor that takes me one step closer to the door of AA (CHOY!!). The poison of choice today was sake, which tasted like thinner (Since smell is 90% taste, I didn't need to literally taste thinner, which I didn't either!) but had a very nice aftertaste, so maybe it's GOODBYE JONNY WALKER, KEEP WALKING (away)! She had a few of her best secondary school chums with her too and spent the night playing some games that I thought by not going cell I wouldn't have to ever play (BUT IT WAS FUN LAH, DUN WORRY OKAY!!)

Natsuo Kirino - Grotesque

It takes a Japanese author to put forward a propostion so presposterous, improbable, not in a way that just grabs your attention and then jump to another topic, but to carry you through the whole journey. The characters in the story have personalities that are so evil, vile and immoral that makes it downright scary because, it's put in such a way that it's actually realistic. Thoughts that seemed too big to put into words is clearly enunciated. As with Out, the story is disgusting, almost beautifully so.